It Comes With the Territory [Mina/James]

Perfect. Fucking perfect! All his efforts, and suddenly it's all ruined by some clueless fool showing up in his lab again!
'Fate works in mysterious ways' his ass, Long Nose was doing this on purpose, the same way he could swear he had done every other time throughout the existence of this place.
...he had to admit, some of those fuckwits had turned out alright. But they were faaaar in the minority.
At least he had his diversions.

James's lab was in full swing, phials bubbling and materials arranged around one of the smaller circles he'd managed to etch into the ground. A strange clump of what appeared to be some sort of gel rested in the centre, its shape twisting as its appearance and texture gradually morphed, hardening and melting as it tried to find the state it belonged in.

He paced around the circle to where a glass slide wound around one of the cell bars, the water becoming ever clearer til it reached a crystalline sheen near the bottom. Sliding a glass beneath the slide, the water drained into it, cold, pure, and clean, all the filth and impurity once contained within caked onto the cell bars.

As he took the glass, the system started cycling water again, and James smiled as he sipped at his drink while watching the activity in the circle.
Fuck the brats. This was what he lived for.

Another day, another moment of peace and quiet, time with which the stoic woman in blue could use to formulate the best socially acceptable responses to future guests as she could come up with. Or, another use would be to investigate how her big brother was handling his duties. After all, Velvet Siblings must look out for one another, no? That in mind, Mina opted to leave her little corner, as drab as some may consider it, and in an amount of time that really didn't matter owing to its lack of existence, arrived, stepping in through the door much akin to how a guest might enter, looking around the room with a cocked brow. Mess, mess, more mess, and her adorable big brother in the centre.

Allowing him the luxury to at least finish his sip before she spoke, Mina coughed in order to alert him to her presence, before speaking up. "Hello James. I must say, it's interesting to see you've opted to indulge yourself in a drink of converted sludge, rather than a simple glass of water. Is this part of a self directed experiment, or, simply your own hobby taking up the room?" she spoke, voice as monotonous as ever, despite the light smile that was mildly visible on her face.

The glass of "Converted Sludge" as she so called it hurtled toward Mina as she made her remarks. He was content to ignore her before, but that certainly got his attention.


"You're as funny as ever, Mina. Go on, scram, I've got better things to deal with." With one last dismissive wave, he starts going about the room, snatching jars from the shelves and tending to his equipment. "Don't you have a new brat to attend to instead of coming over to bother me over the things you can't understand again? I swear on that jackass's giant nose, you need to find something to do with yourself instead of bothering me all the time."

Leaning out of the way as the container went through the air, Mina's expression remained stoic as ever, before turning back to face James, and not even bothering to acknowledge the remains of the smashed water glass behind her. At his touchy reaction, a wry smile crossed her lips, the woman shaking her head and ignoring his dismissal. "I do indeed have a new guest, but, you and I both know that you always say you have better things to do, whether to myself, your unfortunate guests, or even our master. Besides, is it so wrong to want to ensure my big brother is doing okay? You may be the very loudest of us attendants after all, so, how am I to know you're not overworking yourself, like the hard worker you deny being?"

Shrugging, Mina decided just to add to the end. "Besides, you and I both know that time is irrelevant. I'm not wasting your time, because we both may as well have all the time in the world; or out of it, for that matter. As for my guest, I should have a few minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years until they return. Now that they are more settled I am allowing them to come of their own volition, but, when they come, I will be ready for their arrival. I trust you haven't caused bodily harm to any of your guests?"

"Pull the other one Mina, it's got bells on it!"
Setting the jars down, he drops a small, scaly leg retrieved from one of them into a vial, and retrieves another vial that had been connected to a distillery. "I see you smirking away each time something crops up to mess with everything I've set up. You just love to see me suffer, don't you?" Moving to one of the nodes on the circle, he pours half of the solution in the vial onto a block of wood, and the gel in the centre seems to respond as the solution soaks in and James pockets the now stoppered vial. "I'm onto you."

Hands in his labcoat, he strolls up to Mina, face to face with her with a smirk on his face. "You really need to find a hobby of your own, you silly little shut-in. There's so much fun going on in the world at large to miss, so many new things to bond over with those little gremlins you like to call the guests, and yet you hole up inside with barely even a basic clue of it all. It's amazing - you have all the time in the world, and you waste all of it!"

At his accusation and declaration, Mina's shoulders shrugged lightly, the smirk not leaving her lips as she looked down at the approaching sibling. "You've got me. Truly, how could I have failed to foresee that you would be able to identify and look through the entire conspiracy where the entirety of the world and beyond is out to get specifically you, and prevent you from doing experiments forever and ever, such a shame that my long term ploy has been foiled by your vast intellect." She mocked, despite the lack of change in her voice.

Still, at his retort, a dry laugh was all Mina could reply with at first, before shaking her head. "I truly am glad to see that all this experimenting hasn't caused you to lose your wit. Still, putting aside theatrics and humorous jabs at one another, I truly am here to simply say hello. So, how have you been? And what master piece of science are you working on now?"

James rolls his eyes. "Fine. I've managed to dodge the arrivals so far, and thus, my workspace remains unmolested. Knowing my luck, that won't last." He groans and turns around to walk away, throwing one arm out. "You're lucky you have anything remotely worth caring about other than that pigsticker of yours. Even when I lock up my stuff, they somehow find ways to break in there and start fucking with all of it. Every. Single. Time."

He puts on a long-suffering expression, gesturing out to the heavens as he paces along. "Oh, can you blame me my paranoia? Nothing I hold sacred is allowed to remain so, ever finding myself with those that would look upon my treasury and ransack it for all its worth. Pity me, for I have truly suffered!" Spinning about on his heel, he crouches down by the circle and pulls out the vial he placed in his coat again. "But nevermind that. It's just the usual with me." He pours out the rest of the vial on a chunk of metal, which greedily drinks up the solution as the gel starts to gain a metallic shimmer. "I figure a few pretty baubles left about to catch their eye and then blow up in their faces would teach them not to go about manhandling everything. This is just a proof of concept - latches to their hand if they grab it. Nothing bad, I promise."

At James' never ending spiel of drama and suffering, all Mina could do was roll her eyes. What was it that made her big brother such a cynical asshat? Truly, she hoped she'd never find out, so that she could remain a positive influence upon her guests, unlike what she imagined was the fate of those that met with him. Still, wasn't like he was the most disrespectful of the group, so, she wasn't going to lecture and tirade his ear off. That was long nose's job. So, she for the most part just ignored his jabs and such, although her eye couldn't help but twitch at the calling of her sword a 'pigsticker'.

At his explanation of what he was doing though, Mina let out a dry, bitter laugh. "Gotten bored of throwing things at your guests then? Or are you perhaps running out of things to throw- on that last note, before you go reach for something to test, I'm not asking for proof. Just surprised you're actively making something for the sake of deterrence, when normally the nearest small object would function as such a deterrent itself. In fact, I'm actually more surprised you have not accidentally ended up with the cadaver of a guest. Or, well, not accidentally, depending on how often your belongings had been touched. Beyond that, I'm just curious. I'd somewhat assumed that throwing standardised office equipment was somewhat of a separate hobby of yours."

He didn't even have to look to be able Mina's reaction to the jab at her sword in his head. It was vivid, it was visceral, it was...immensely satisfying.
Deserved it for the 'converted sludge' remark anyway. Water so perfectly pure doesn't deserve such a moniker.

At the questioning, James just smirks, a gleam in his eye as he watches his creation take shape. "Believe me, a lot of those morons would be more useful to the world as cadavers. And it's definitely satisfying when karma connects with their skull. But, try as I might, divine judgement doesn't tend to come before they fuck things up." The gel starts to get real form, shaping into a goblet with something twining about it. "If their idiocy targets one of these things instead of something actually important...well, that's one thing rescued already, isn't it?"

Watching with half amusement, half disinterest, and 100% Mina-ness, the Velvet Attendant waited for the gel to finish forming before speaking, simply shrugging and shaking her head. "I suppose, although I'd be careful not to do something which would cause any potential guests to... Well, want to start a ruckus. After all, what's the expression about a cornered animal? There's no knowing the damage they could do to your oh so high quality objects." She declared, gesturing around the room with her right arm. That he was so aggressive towards his guests baffled her so much, doubly so that he wanted them to be deceased.

But, those expressions of distaste could come from another day. Perhaps if she were to catch him outside of his musty hole. Still, there's nothing she needed to do any further; she said she just came to check up on him, and having done both that and antagonised him, her duty was done.

"Well, on that note big brother, I will leave you to your tinkering. If you require anything of me for whatever reason, even if it is something as meaningless as to keep your wit up to form, then you know which room is mine. You'll end up there if you wish it, you know how these things are here." Opening her book, Mina flicked through a few pages, before offering one final wave to James, not bothering to wait on if he wanted anything while she was there. Slamming her book shut, the Velvet Lady was gone, back to her own area.

[Exit]

As the materials set about the circle dissolved and drained into the centre, a shimmering golden goblet with flowering vines formed as the final result of the process, and one that James seemed very pleased with. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. They're problems by default, no need to remind me."
He looked up and offered one last dismissive wave in return before Mina disappeared and he was left blissfully on his own. With a gleeful smile and a little skip to his step, he snatched up the goblet and bounced over to one of the shelves, tossing the creation between his hands with speed and flourish. After looking over the shelves, he makes one last toss and places it down on one easily reached by any visitor, and nudges it about so that it's both the first thing to be seen and in the perfect place to catch the eye.

He smiles widely as he steps back and looks everything over one last time.

Perfect, like all of his work.